Sellin’ The Vote

Posted in Uncategorized by Flavor on January 9, 2014

I was mildly amused by Deadspin’s pub stunt of buying a Hall of Fame vote from one of the BBWAA writers last November. Deadspin gave the vote to their readers and the results weren’t interesting. Just the fact that they did it was interesting. It was a clever way of showing how dated the HOF voting process has become. There are 571 writers out there with a HOF vote. I wonder how many of them get sold every year? I wouldn’t think it would be too difficult to buy off a voter. And do you know how they submit the vote? In this day and age where electronic voting with personal codes and encrypted emails are the norm, the BBWAA asks you to “mail or fax” your vote in. No possibility for tampering there, right?

The Hall of Fame is the last line of defense for these writers. It’s their way of exacting control and power over the sport. Barry Bonds blew them off for an interview? Oh, they’ll get their revenge. The HOF vote allows these writers to have the last word. It gives them relevancy once a year. I can just imagine them sitting back at home with a beer and watching the internet explode over the results of each voter’s card. You can almost hear them collectively cackle at the chaos on twitter.

The hallowed halls of the Hall of Fame are getting less and less hallowed with each passing year….

What a clusterfuck. I really do hope some change is made (sooner the better) that shoves this right up the baseball writers’ asses. Sad thing is there are a number of writers out there that are “straight shooters” and vote as most of us here feel they should. And while that will suck for those writers the voting process needs to be changed.

I think a public vote would be a good change (similar to the All Star vote). The possibility of some writer (or group of writers) getting peeved over a player’s snub is real, and the vindictive writer then holds the power for some “serious paybacks.” It is just a totally fucked-up system (and it pisses me off).

Anyway, all of this does NOT distract, for me, from the Hall itself…a museum/shrine to acknowledge the greats who laced-up a pair of cleats and picked-up a glove and bat.

I will probably forgo a future trip to Scottsdale for ST and take a trip to Cooperstown. It truly is a place I want to see.

Thx Snarkk for the link from csnbayarea. The other 3 guys present reasonable ballots with 10 names, and then you get the completely ridiculous Killion with 4, who objects to being called “moral police.” Even Ratto made more sense than her, not a good sign.
Like Ratto said, she should go with the ADD defense. Just another case of someone who should never open their mouth, the better to hide how foolish they really are.

BTW Craig – great thread. And I thought the selling of the vote (I heard there was more than one writer who sold their vote) mildly entertaining. The more this happens and becomes publicized, perhaps a change in the voting procedures (who votes) will come to pass. We can only hope…

Well, the HOF will have to do something as they move forward, their attendance numbers have bee going down for years. The Hall has laid the blame on the economy, PEDs etc but I haven’t seen any blame on they way they run the place (being in Cooperstown can’t help). Here is a WSJ article about it from last year if anyone is interested in the Hall attendance http://tinyurl.com/lf98zfu

Me, I got pretty fired up about the HOF yesterday and the day before that it was North Carolina politics. At least my anger towards the Hall isn’t that often, the politics on the other hand…
So I think I’ll go outside, do some errands, take the wife to lunch and generally just chill out. Have a good one.

Christie is going with the “non-apology apology” today, about the bridge closure scandal:
“I apologize, even though I didn’t do anything wrong.”
I read a book about Nixon several years ago that said Republican politicians had a word for political dirty tricks like that. They used to call it “rat-f#cking” the opposition. I wonder if it still gets called that within the inner world of politics.
To make a baseball connection, Hall of Fame voters get the chance to “rat-f#ck” players they don’t like. Seriously, I’m no Schilling fan, but it’s even ridiculous the low vote totals he got. And Kent was probably a similar situation: they ticked off some sportswriters over the years, and this is the way the writers get their payback.

Zumiee…that is definitely Nixon era..been in the political arena here in DC for 20 years now and that term has definitely fallen by the wayside. But we definitely used it in college/fraternity days and shortened the term to RFing for general pranks and mayhem…

Christie has played this scene before. Said he was lied to by his education commissioner, fired the guy…but, oops. There were Emails and documents that refuted Christie’s claim that he knew nothing. If anybody has anything to refute this claim, as Steve Kornacki said on MSNBC, Christie is “screwed”..

Off topic, but I know there are many here that love music. I saw the Blues Harmonica Blowout (tribute to Sonny Boy Williamson) ast night in Folsom. Off the Fricking Hook! Not sure if there are any remainind dates in NorCal, but if you like the blues, do yourself a favor and get tix to see this show.

Opened by Mark Hummel (bay are blues harmonica player and organizer). Followed by Rick Estrin (Sacramento harp player), Curtis Salgado, and finally, the Godfather of British Blues…John Mayall. The show ended with all of them on stage together (the also invited up an up and coming harps man from Sacramento…this kid must have been loving life). Great show!

Got tix for Elvin Bishop (with James Cotton and Ruthie Foster) today. That should also be a great show. Next month we catch Hot Tuna (acoustic with David Lindley) and a few days later, The Devel Makes Three.

Seen Curtis Salgado years ago. Great stuff. Saw Charlie Musselwhite at Bottle Rock in Napa. Really great stuff. But, Jimmy Thackery at the Santa Cruz Blues festival was insane. He ended up playing with Steve Vai at one point. Crazy shit.

OK, here goes, Chuck. Went on a ski club trip (in high school) to Utah for 5 days. The last night was Friday night and somehow we found out one of the room numbers that Elvin Bishop and the Marshall Tucker band, who had played that night in the Salt Palace, were in at our hotel. So, we waited til it was about 12:30, and decided to crash the room. We knock on the door, and there’s big bad Toy Caldwell, looking pissed, says, what do YOU want? We were, uh, hey. how was the show, man? Wish we coulda made it! Slam. So, we dejectedly walked toward the elevator. I push the button, and the door opens up. There’s Elvin Bishop, grinning like a madman. He says what you guys up to? See the show? We all said no. I said I saw you at Frost in Palo Alto opening for the Dead last year. He says, yeah! Great show! Come on back to the room! We’ll have ourselves a little show there.

So we go right back where we came from, and Elvin lets us in. Toy said ‘I just threw these guys out of here!’ Elvin smiled and said ‘don’t listen to him’ as he grabbed us all a beer. Talked about concerts and shit for a little bit. Drank some beer, the bottles of Jack went around the room, soon followed by the mirror. We sat around and talked about crazy shit while they would occasionally play songs, jam, and just noodle around. It was way too fun. Problem was we had to leave the hotel at 7:00 am Saturday to catch out flight. So we reluctantly left at around 6:00 am to pack our shit and go. Never forget that night. I’ve seen EB a bunch of times after that, and he was at the Santa Cruz blues festival last year, but I’d love to somehow talk to him again about that weird night in Salt Lake City. It felt like we were there for an hour but it was really 5 or 6.

They played the local high schools in the south bay before hitting it big. Saw them a number of times (mostly at Winterland). I was shocked when I moved to Morrison, Colorado and went to Little Bear (night spot in Evergreen) and saw their photos plastered all over the wall. Them and Big Head Todd and the Monsters are big, big, acts at the Little Bear and other watering holes in the Denver/Front Range area. Cool story Chuck!

bishop’s shows are always good. James Cotton is one of my idols, from the first time I heard his LP from late 60s with Sam Lay and Luther Tucker (another guy I used to see at JJs before he died).
Haven’t been able to locate this one on CD except as compilation of 2 LPs under the name “Dealin with the Devil”. And JC does a killer version of Sonny boy’s “Don’t Start Me Talkin.”
Enjoy man, these guys are only gonna be around so long.